Beat em up Hero...person

One of the original concepts that I wanted in Fists of Justice was the ability of the player to create their own character to use in the game. Ever since I was playing 2D beat em ups on the Genesis, I wanted to be able to play one of these games as a character that I made. I had scrapped the concept initially because I thought it would be too hard to implement.

However, last friday I was working on the game, and I realized that if I seperated the different pieces of the characters body, reassembling them at run time and filling them in with the XNA color system, it just might work. So, I altered the sprites, changed the drawing code, and...well, here's a character I made using the new custom character system in-game:

I tried to make him look like me...well, me if I had any muscle and didn't have to wear glasses[grin]

The custom character system, or "Character Profiles" as I call them in the code, allow the user to choose their characters hair, eyes, clothes, pants, skin color, hair color, and the color of their clothes. This means that the player will be able to create their very own characters for use in the game. That, combined with the RPG elements I'm planning to have in the game, will make some sort of Oblivion meets 2D beat em up...thing.

It's also cool because I'll be able to have the enemies appearences be randomly, or semi-randomly generated (random face, but same clothes, for instance). Also, this will make creating new character sprites alot easier, although I still have to draw all the different parts of the characters.

Now I need to make a "Create a Character" menu, that the player will be shown when they start up the game.

7 Comments

Recommended Comments

Share this comment

Link to comment

You do realize, however, that this also means that you now have to give us the ability to chop enemy heads off. Or rip their arms off. Or cut their legs off. Or gouge their eyes out. Or rip their ears off.

You get the idea.

But in all honesty, that does also could lend itself to some interesting game play "features"...

0

Share this comment

Link to comment

I hadn't thought of it that way, but you do make a very good point. Although I am partial to the idea of beating an opponent to death with their own severed arm, I don't think I want to make the game too over the top violent.

However, later in the game I was planning on having fighting robots, and that concept of being able to take off body parts(and use them as weapons), would work great there.

0

Share this comment

Link to comment

Original post by Stompy9999I hadn't thought of it that way, but you do make a very good point. Although I am partial to the idea of beating an opponent to death with their own severed arm, I don't think I want to make the game too over the top violent.

However, later in the game I was planning on having fighting robots, and that concept of being able to take off body parts(and use them as weapons), would work great there.

Or at the very least, a cool death sequence. You could have their heads get knocked off and exploded. Or they could spin around in circles really fast and have their head fly off like a rocket ship. Just a lot of little cool animation stuff.

0

Share this comment

Link to comment

Share this comment

Link to comment

Original post by visageOr at the very least, a cool death sequence. You could have their heads get knocked off and exploded. Or they could spin around in circles really fast and have their head fly off like a rocket ship. Just a lot of little cool animation stuff.

It would be cool to have a special attack, like a special punch or something, that upon hitting someone they explode. A decapitating uppercut also sounds interesting.

For the bosses, it would be funny to do like Metal Gear Solid 3, where each boss would inexplicably explode upon defeat.

0

Share this comment

Link to comment

I really want the player to be able to create a character that is completely their own when playing the game. I haven't mentioned it yet, but I came up with a fairly simple but cool level-up system that will add a nice RPG element to the game.